I've hit a wee bit of a snag that means that I'll need to scan the old NBT pages again. Particularly on the early issues. Playing with these scans, I've been reading some of those early attempts at stringing a sentence together, It's not pretty to the point of toe-curling. Maybe a little like starting a band without being able to play. But anyway, I'll just have to suck that up and let my yeah be yeah.

So stick with us. Simon has done a great job. It's good that the process of invigorating this thing is finally underway. I feel that the word "energised" has hit the wall as a casualty of the farce that went down on Thursday. Anyway, let's not go over all that now. You're likely sick to your stomach of it. I know that I am however this time next week I shall be in a far, far better place.

NEW LOOK! WORK IN PROGRESS!!

Hey, mi amigo Simon is helping me revamp this beastie. Actually he's doing all the brain melting stuff so please bear with us. He also has to put up with my plodding so Rome is unlikely to be built in a day. This has been a public service announcement.

Evoking pulp, sparks, roxy music and the soundtrack to carnival of souls re-imagined by tangerine dream. Producer Christian Gabel used to be in Bob Hund and that’s the direction this orbits to a degree. I guess it’s what might be referred to as “minimal”. As opposed to orchestral maybe. But this quibbling never dampens the bigger cinematic picture. I used lower case on those band names back there because the evocation is spiritual rather than sonic.

“I Forgot About Songs” recalls “I Wonder Who Is Like This One”, quiet, understated and all the better for a faulty electrical connection. “The Crawler” made me wonder if Annika ever heard Ivor Cutler. Probably (possibly) but you never know, and why would she have? Anyway, the point I’m struggling to make is that this is prose as opposed to mere song. The dialect of her voice is as much an instrument as any other employed to give this material the form that we can hear. I’m not sure if that explains anything at all but I know what I mean. “Raspberry Lips” is reminiscent of Suicide’s “Surrender” and I plan to test the suitability of a segue for any future dj stint down the road.

Closing opus, “This Body” is like an astral cousin to Lou Reed’s Berlin with Christian G playing the part of Bob Ezrin. There’s a song on here called “Berlin” too but I think that’s just a coincidence. Anyway, the strings are equally as chilling as “Sad Song”, channelling a similar, spare, forlorn oddness.

No-one not nowhere is making music that is as beguiling as this. It provides an outpost in which to get gone from the mundane, far, far away from any flavour of the minute. This latest diary entry indicates that there’s no end in sight to the magic that this girl has been weaving for the best part of a decade now.  Maybe, just maybe, the world will catch on to this extraordinary catalogue that has been spooning my sad little heart over these past years.

Further direct evidence of the lady in question being “good with words” can be found in “Texter” a book of lyrics that has just come out via Teg Publishing. It resembles a bible of sorts with its red edged pages and it contains everything but the contents of på engelska for some reason. It’s mostly in Swedish with the exception of the Hello Saferide lyrics but completists will need to grab a copy anyway. 

Hearing the stream was one thing but I urge you to seek out the physical release. This is a rare occasion when rare high expectations were actually met and raised. That seldom if ever happens. At least not with me.

This is soul music. Maybe not as you know it but that's what Hello Saferide is. On the Razzia imprint where they know about such things.

Order your copy here!

RIP - Charles M. Young

Now that The Ramones are all gone – you know I don’t include Mark(y) – there’s a vacancy to be filled and there are some Spanish youngsters called Pantones that understand what makes that old punk rock ticker skip a beat or three. Their recent “¿Quién Quiere Primavera?” Is mostly in their native lingo but that doesn’t stop it hitting all the spots.

They have a grasp of what makes rock’n’roll radio great. It’s all about the tunes and these kids have those and the chops to deliver these rather tasty numbers with a gusto that suggests that all may not be lost after all. They’re making inroads at home but sooner or later, Spain won’t be able to contain them and they’ll explode worldwide. Maybe via a movie soundtrack or some such vehicle but somehow or other Pantones are just too contagious not to start a pop pandemic.

Imagine The Fastbacks having cut “Bark Like A Dog”, Paty Critter’s voice isn’t a shouty yelp. I think I mentioned before that she sounds like a smoky mix of Joey and Susannah Hoffs via Belinda Carlisle. Their take of “The Sign” by Ace of Base is a riot and it suggests that they could make a killer record in "English" should they ever care to do so.

Last year’s finest seasonal single is included and there’s always the hope that it might appear struck into 7” vinyl where it so rightly belongs. One of these days I’ll get to see them play but for now getting acquainted with their Subterfuge Records releases will have to suffice.

I should really upgrade this damn thing. In addition, it would probably be an idea to check some of these sidebar links too. Trouble is that I spend all day, every day (nearly) staring at a screen and the last thing I want to do at home is stare some more. I've semi-successfully weaned myself off TV and taken to falling asleep on the sofa but that seems like a start in not being ruled by technology.

So we'll see. If I had any patience at all, I'd work all of this out but I don't and I haven't. One of these days though it'll all fall into place. Right?

From the new album "The Fox, The Hunter and Hello Saferide" out September 3rd on Razzia.

Check what happens at 3.44...